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From Victoria BC’s Moon Under Water Brewing comes their “Tempus Corvi 2017″ a mixed fermentation saison. The beer pours an orange colour with a white head and tons of sediment. The aroma consists of tartness, citrusy fruit and sweetness. The flavour is of orange, tropical fruit, mild citrus rind, sweetness, mild tartness and a dry finish. The alcohol content comes in at 7.9%. This was a really good approachable sour and perfect for both the new beer fan or a seasoned beer nerd.

Commercial Description: A collaboration with local award winning homebrewer, Dave Janssen. Taking inspiration from traditional saison brewers of Belgium and revivalist brewers of North America, Tempus Corvi is a mixed-fermentation saison. We let this saison rest for 5 months in French oak wine barrels where the activity of a diverse collection of Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces yeasts and lactic acid bacteria transformed the beer, adding sourness and additional complexity. With its bright acidity and light body, Tempus Corvi is a refreshing beer ready to drink now or be cellared for continued development along its own course.

April has come again and one of my favourite beer festivals has come and passed. This was the 22 annual Fest-Of-Ale in Penticton. This years festival was held on April 7-8th 2017 (Friday and Saturday). This festival is held at the Penticton Trade and Concention Centre and is comprised of a large indoor area and a small outdoor section. Both areas have live music as well as food options.

This festival continues to grow every year. This year had an extra 15 breweries bringing it up to 65 and and a total of 6 bringing it up to 71 cider and beer producers.

This year there were more than 175 craft beers being poured over the Friday and Saturday with over 5000 people in attendance. Once again this was an amazing festival with great beer and lots of great people! Here are some of the beer and food that I tried while at the fest.

This year I spent more time working on episodes of Pacific Beer Chat than I did taking photos for the blog.

Like every year this was an amazing event. There are a ton of people but you never have to wait in line long for a beer. So many beer festivals get so crowded that you almost need two samples glasses to make it to the front of the line. In the years that I have attended this has never been an issue.

This festival has become one of my absolute favorites every year. Most of the best breweries come to this festival every year and the people really love that fact! This year there were so many new beers to boot! It may not have been requested but this year so many breweries brought out North East Style IPA’s the super cloudy and juicy beers. These beers are all the rage right now and I am very happy that this is the case.

The first day of the festival I really explored the beers that the festival had to offer as I usually do. This year though the weather was very bad on the way to Penticton and you could pick out the people like me that took the Coquihalla Highway and the Okanagan Connector as were were still stressed out and drank a bit to much because of it. On Day 2 I was once again one of the as they put it Industry Expert judges for the best beers of the festival. After Juding beer from 10am on Saturday I decided like normal that the second day of the festival was far more about the food than the beer. Luckily for me the food was amazing!

If I remember correctly on Saturday around 3pm all of the judges made their way to the Main Stage for the awards ceremony. Here are the winners from this years festival.

The Awards were distributed as follows:
Best in Show, Judges’ Choice Award:
High Five Hazy IPA – Yellow Dog Brewing, Port Moody, BC

When it comes right down to it if you can only make it to one beer festival in British Columbia in a year then the Okagnagan Fest-Of-Ale is that one festival. They also have an amazing pop up liquor store to boot!

With October brings BC Craft Beer Month and with that brings the BC Beer Awards. Once again this year the awards ceremony and beer festival were held at the Croatian Cultural Centre. This year the event was held on October 15th just a little earlier than last year.

I have been attending the BC Beer awards for many years now and it seems to be getting better and better. With the industry exploding like it is in the province this event will only get better. Much like always the event began at 4pm and ended at 9pm. The festival was once again in two room and even had some beer pouring in the front entrance area. This year there were 75 breweries pouring beer at the festival and 5 cideries.

Stephen Quinn from CBC Radio was once again the voice of the BC Beer Awards this year. This year 83 breweries entered beers into the competition and there were 750 different beers entered. Once again this was more breweries entering beer up from 70 last year. Its nice to see that once again this year more breweries have come out to try their luck. Instead of doing the awards at the end of the night this year they started it near the beginning. Lets get to the winning beers of the year!

This year’s Best of Show Flagship IPA is even more exciting as Julia Hanlon of Steamworks becomes the first female Head Brewer in BC to win this award! A huge congratulations is in order for this!

Once the awards finished everyone went back to enjoying the beer that was on hand. This was once again an amazing event with amazing beer being poured as well as great people be it craft beer fans or brewery staff. Every year this event gets bigger and better! Here is to another year of sticking it to the flavourless garbage that macro breweries make.

Once again like last year I helped set the festival up between 10:30am and 3pm. It makes the festival even more fun when you are able to get involved in any part of the event.

On January 30th, 2016 (Saturday) Central City Brewing held their annual Winter Cask Festival. This is probably the marquee cask event in BC and I was happy to once again attend.

This year the festival brought us 40 casks from breweries only found in British Columbia. This years ticket got you a branded sample glass with three samples tokens. More tokens could be purchased at the front desk. Like years past many of the casks swung to the Imperial side of things which makes sense as most winter beers are higher in alcohol.

Like I mentioned before this is one of the best if not best Cask events in the entire province every year and it was not different this time. The beer was great and the people attending were awesome. I had great conversations that paired amazingly with the beer I was drinking. I wish more places in BC would hold pure cask events to this scale.

My favourite beers of the night were a tie between two beers once again.

Moon Under Water – Oud King Crow 2015

Fuggles & Warlock – Dark Cow Chocolate Milk Porter

If you have never attended a cask festival or one of Central City Brewing’s amazing cask festivals then you need to change it up and attend. Not only do you try great been but you will meet many new people that are really into Craft Beer.

Sometimes really cool events come up that inspire you to go on a road trip. On a visit to Vancouver’s Bomber Brewing I was made aware of the East Kootenay Beer Festival at Fairmont Hot Springs resort in the Far Eastern portion of the Province right on the Alberta border. If you have been following this blog for a while you will know that last year I did a road trip around the Kootenays and loved it (Click here to read). On that trip I fell in love with the Kootenays and could not wait to get back (but assumed it would be years before being back).

A beer festival held at the base of a ski resort that happens to be at a Hot Springs resort sounds like a match made in heaven. Already using many of my holidays I took a long weekend to attend the festival. On Friday June 19th my Mom and I hit the road around 9am for our 850km trek to the resort.

Heading to the resort we headed East on Highway 1 until we got to the Coquihalla Highway. The Coquihalla Highway brought us to Kamloops where we joined back up with Highway 1 until Golden. Once in Golden hundreds of km from home we took highway 95 South to the resort. The drive is very picturesque and will take your breath away!

On arrival to Fairmont Hot Springs we were greeted with a welcome to the 4th annual beer festival.

Seeing as the last time I was at this resort it was only to use the public hot spring pools as my Girlfriend and I were camping down the highway we did a bunch of exploring around the resort. Besides the Hotel portion of the resort there is also camping (although I think it was only for RV’s). They also have a golf course and it looked like a mini golf course but I only spied it while driving by. On top of this they also have a ski hill which rounds out their Winter operations and this is where the festival was to be held on Saturday June 20th.

Seeing as I wanted to get up early on Saturday to hit up the hot springs as well as head into Invermere to visit Arrowhead Brewing I headed to bed at a pretty reasonable time. Once Saturday rolled around wristbands could be picked up after 1pm that would allow you into the festival grounds. Shuttle buses started at 3:30pm to bring you up the 3km access road as the festival ran between 4pm and 8pm.

The brewery list was fairly impressive considering the distance some of the breweries had to travel including all three Victoria Breweries that came! The cost of the festival on its own was $49 and was all inclusive for the beer while food could be purchased from a food truck and the bbq stand. There was live music played by the band Cod Gone Wild and they rocked it. The festival was a blast! Between the live music, beautiful setting and a bunch of beer that I had actually never been able to sample I was totally in my element. The people from the Kootenays were amazingly friendly as well as all of the Albertans and the odd crazy person like me that came a long way to partake in the festivities. I would not hesitate to head back to this festival in future years. The beer was served from packaged products (Bottles and cans) as well as from tap depending on how the breweries transported it.

In some ways I would have to say that I had more fun at this festival than most I have been to. Yes as a blogger and beer traveler I know many of the brewery staff but I did not know one festival goer at the festival! I made some many great short term (festival) friends and had a ton of great conversions with interesting people. There was even an after party at the ski lodge from 8pm until 11pm with a cash bar and other live music. I headed down the mountain without sticking around for the after party to meet up with many of the brewery staff for more beer and a soak in the hotsprings. Sadly when Sunday rolled around my Mom and I had to hop back in the car for anouther marathon drive. This time we took the South Route though and went through Osoyoos and Manning Park on the way to Vancouver.

This drive is a at least an hour longer than the Northern route but just as pretty.

For the sake of showing the entire route we took on the 1800km trek here are two maps one close up of the entire trek and one of the entire province of BC for scale.

I had an epic time in the Kootenays and so did my mom and I look forward to getting back sooner than later! The East Kootenay Beer Festival for 2016 has already been announced so think about saving the date June 18th, 2016! The long weekend model is quite feasible for Albertan and Okanagan residence and I would not hesitate to recommend considering going this route. If like me though you live further West or even further North or South I would recommend taking a week and taking a few days to explore the province on the way to and from the Festival. The Kootenays also have so much to offer in the way of Hot Springs, Breweries, hiking and really any outdoor activity you can think of. Once you get to the Kootenays don’t run away as you will love every second you linger in this beautiful countryside. If you can’t make it for the East Kootenay Beer Festival take a trip out to Fairmont Hot Springs Resort when you can you will not be disappointed! Congratulations Fairmont Hot Springs Resort for putting on a very successful event this year!